Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Database explains strange survival of irregular verbs

An historical study of the development of irregular verbs in the hundreds of Romance languages including French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian and Catalan has revealed how these structures survive. Experts have also examined why they are learned by successive generations despite ‘making no sense’ or, apparently, having any function in the language.

Oxford University has published an online database displaying the irregularities of the verb systems of 80 Romance languages and dialects – those that developed from Latin – to highlight the research. The database is useful to specialists and others with an interest in Romance languages.